The rumors of its demise sadly over-calculated, LOST has settled into ratings numbers that secures it in the company of the best dramas on television. Had LOST managed to hold onto the 23million-plus it had in the beginning of its second series, I doubt ABC would be able to afford to produce it at this point. Any clue on what Matt Fox might demand for his LOST paycheck knowing the largest television audience in history was tuning in?



The fact of the matter is, LOST set records: Most Emmy nominations for a new series, and wins to boot; Most viewers for second season premiere; and, of course, one of the best cliff hangers in television history ?What is in the hatch??

Aside from all of this, the show has literally reinvented the internet fan community on such a scale that some sites, TheTailsection and LostPedia, found themselves featured players in the Alternate Reality Game ?The Lost Experience? that was released to ease the game between season two and three.

The fact that the doomsayers have started to come out of the journalistic woodwork with tails of faltering numbers and disenchanted fans is nothing short of proof that malcontentism is alive and well.

With its incongruity of surreptitious plot twists and startling, sometimes jarring, changes of locale, the show has shown no sign of slowing down from its unique approach of ?leave continuity behind? writing, which for this author is perfectly okay. I'd love nothing more than to see LOST evade resolution for another ten seasons, if they could do it effectively, but, alas, that is not the goal of the men and women behind LOST; they claim to have planned a beginning, middle, and end, that will span four-to-five seasons at best. With that assurance, the criticism that LOST is a train with no rail is nonsense. Despite bold attempts to explain LOST (?Lost for newbies? for instance.), however, that end seems no-more closer than it did two weeks ago when we all watched a prone man, bloodied and disoriented, open a green eye onto an island of mystery for the first time.